Avery Hamill, Pennsylvania Capital-Star

Secretary Deb Haaland said the department is close to completing its research into boarding school sites and the location of possible burial sites “at or near school facilities,” and that the research identifies “the tribal affiliations of children interred at those locations.”

Haaland (Laguna) announced the investigation into the nation’s boarding school history in June and wrote an op-ed saying the earliest era especially caused generational trauma for Indigenous people.

During a press call celebrating her one-year mark running the Interior Department, Haaland stressed the importance of ensuring support for people uncovering the traumatic past caused by the federal government.

“We have been very cognizant of the fact that we need to create a safe space for people to share information and seek resources,” she said. “We recognize that this is a very traumatic experience for many people. We want to make sure that folks have the resources that they need to get through this.”

Boarding schools started with the Indian Civilization Act of 1819. “The purpose of Indian boarding schools was to culturally assimilate Indigenous children by forcibly relocating them from their families and communities to distant residential facilities,” according to the Interior Department.

For more than 150 years, hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children were taken from their communities to experience a school system where they were abused for speaking traditional language or practicing ceremonial customs.

In Pennsylvania, Native American children travelled on trains, thousands of miles from their homes, to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Cumberland County in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Many had been forcibly taken from their parents and communities, the Capital-Star previously reported.

Once there, they had to hand over their belongings, put on uniforms, cut off their braids, adopt new names and abandon their languages and cultural practices.

Under teachers in charge of assimilation, the children studied English and memorized the U.S. presidents. The rest of the time, they worked on the school grounds or on assignments in neighboring towns.

Some tried to run away. Some married. A few, like Olympic gold medalist Jim Thorpe, had renowned sports careers.

Thousands of students from more than 140 Native American tribes attended the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in its 39 years in operation in southern Pennsylvania. Opened in 1879, it was the first government-run, off-reservation boarding school for Native Americans.

A federal investigation seeks to uncover the painful history of Native American boarding schools in Pa., nationwide

Some students never came home, the victims of disease and poor health care, lost to their families. Last yeara, the Army began disinterring from a military cemetery the remains of 10 children who died between 1880 and 1910 while attending the Pennsylvania school, returning them to their relatives for burial.

The Interior Department is on track to meet its April 1 deadline to get a report on the history to Secretary Deb Haaland’s desk.

“I look forward to getting the draft of the report,” she said.”Once I have that in hand, we can move on to next steps, which I believe will be next month. So stay tuned.”

Shaun Griswold is a reporter for Source New Mexico, a sibling site of the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, where this story first appeared. Capital-Star Editor John L. Micek contributed to this story.

Pennsylvania Capital-Star is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John Micek for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on Facebook and Twitter.

As a student making the hard transition back to in-person learning, I'm wondering what's going to strike first: a COVID outbreak or a school shooting. I'm worried for my school community and for the trauma, the “what ifs" around gun violence are causing.

According to research by Everytown For Gun Safety, from Aug.1 to Sept. 30 of this year, there were 56 incidents of gunfire on school grounds. In 2019, there were 22 incidents in the same time period.

This harrowing number doesn't fully encompass the human loss behind that number. It means more families mourning the gun death of a child — too many of them taken from us in a place that is supposed to protect and nurture us, school.

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I love school. It's a place to learn, a place to play, and a place to grow into the adult I'm becoming. But it's scary. Walking onto campus every day wondering if I'll have to send my mom a text that reads, 'Hey I'm scared. There's an active shooter on campus. I just wanted you to know I love you.'

It's a possibility that deeply worries me, and we need people to stand up now to fight against it. We need to pass life-saving laws in our state to protect our children and the people who care for them all day at school. One important step to that is creating a Permit to Purchase law. These laws help keep us all safe by requiring a license to buy a firearm.

I'm worried for our youngest students who have been participating in active shooter drills their whole lives. What are the long-term effects of the 'what if's?' When do we say enough is enough? It ends now.

We have the chance to make sure all of our most vulnerable students are protected so not a single mother, father, grandparent, or friend has to get an 'I just want you to know…. I love you' text. Or the loved ones who won't even get that text because their children were already attacked.

Thoughts and prayers have their place, but now we need action.

We need to step up to the plate and use our voice to advocate for common-sense changes. We need to protect the most vulnerable people in our communities. Studies show that permit to purchase laws lead to reductions in gun homicides, suicides, and the use of the weapons in crimes.

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We lose too many precious lives to gun violence every single year — just one death is too many. Yet every single year in Pennsylvania alone 1,574 people die by guns.

We need to demand that our representatives at the state level pass common-sense gun laws like permit to purchase.

As a leader within Students Demand Action, I see gun violence at every turn; as a student on the front lines worried about coming home every day from school, and as an activist standing up to try and pass lifesaving laws.

Because the 'what if's' haunt me every night, distracting me from homework and making me worry about younger generations — if they are going to be the next statistic on a page, or leave behind the next mother to stand up on the floor of Congress imploring our government to take action and pass life-saving bills.

We have the chance to be the voice for the voiceless, the cane for the mourning families, the pillow for the students. Please stand up and demand that the state Legislature listens and passes permit to purchase if not me for your children and all the children to come.

Avery Hamill is a student, activist, and theatre maker. Spending school years worrying about gun violence and the trauma it's causing, they decided to join the anti-gun violence advocacy group Students Demand Action. Though this work he's meet families torn apart by gun violence and turned to theatre, using the arts as a medium to express the way gun violence effects Philadelphia and the country at-large.

Pennsylvania Capital-Star is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John Micek for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on Facebook and Twitter.